Fox News Channel ushered in the early days of the Christmas season with its fourth annual “All-American Christmas Tree Lighting.” That fun event, full as it is of Christmas cheer, aired live during the Monday night broadcast of FNC’s “The Five.”
Gathering in FOX Square, which sits outside the network’s New York City headquarters, Fox News employees and executives congregated with their families while “The Five” co-hosts Harold Ford. Jr., Greg Gutfeld, Jesse Watters, Judge Jeanine Pirro, and Dana Perino handled the event.
During the event, the FOX “All-American Christmas tree” was lit. It, which stands 50 feet tall, is decorated with 12,000 Christmas ornaments and nearly 350,000 Christmas lights, with all of those decorations handing off of its 500 branches. Even more impressively, it is topped by an over six feet tall star topper. The tree, Fox News reports, took over 27 hours to set up.
Watch the event here:
In addition to lighting up the gorgeous Christmas tree, which stood radiant in the square, lighting it up with bright Christmas lights, the co-hosts used the opportunity and familial warmth surrounding it to remind viewers of what is important and to take advantage of the holidays to remember how important family is.
Particularly, Dana Perino said, “The holiday season always reminds us to remember what is most important. This year, the Fox family is thinking of Israel and the Jewish people. Believe me, we hear you and we are standing with you. It has been a heart-wrenching 44 days since Hamas terrorists launched an attack on the Israeli people. More than 200 are still being held hostage, including babies as young as 10 months old and we are all hoping and praying that their families get to hug them again very soon.”
For the event, FOX Media partnered with the First Responders Children’s Foundation. That non-profit was formed to “Help support the children and families of first responders who have been killed or injured in the line of duty.”
On its “About” page, the First Responders Children’s Foundation notes that it “provides financial support to children who have lost a parent in the line of duty as well as families enduring significant financial hardship due to tragic circumstances. First Responders Children’s Foundation also supports, promotes, and facilitates educational activities and programs created and operated by first responder organizations whose purpose is to benefit children or the community at large.”
The Fox News Christmas Tree was set alight in 2021 by Craig Tamanaha, a homeless vagrant who was then 49 years old and had a lengthy rap sheet. He, after sneaking under the artificial tree and lighting it on fire, faced a massive slew of charges, including arson, criminal mischief, reckless endangerment, and criminal trespass.
NY Police Commissioner Dermont Shea, speaking about Tamanaha, said, “It’s an individual that’s known to us — he has a series of low level arrests and drug arrests. He was issued some earlier this year — some appearance tickets and didn’t come back to court, which unfortunately is something we see all too often. He also has some low-level arrests out of state — I believe it’s Texas.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
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